Toy Dojo
by Wordblindness
Summary: When Ran fell afoul of global politics, he needed a place to hide. Unfortunately, his old drinking buddy Happosai is the only one who can help. Is it worth the price?
1. The Making of a Man

The wizened old man smiled in satisfaction as he dropped a pair of pliers down into an nearby tool chest. After pausing to stretch the stiffness out of his back, he turned and yelled over his shoulder. "Genma! Come over here. I've finished." 

A bespectacled teen sat up from where he had been lounging across a spare workbench. "Really? Doesn't look like much...Appropriate color, though. So...should I start calling you Baron Von Happosai now?" 

"Idiot!" Happosai snapped. "It doesn't matter what he looks like. He is the first of a superior breed—the next stage in human evolution! 

"Think of it, Genma! Today, people spend the first quarter of their lives at school, just trying to learn enough to get ahead in life, but do they succeed? No! Most barely even pick up the basic skills they need to break even. Greatness is completely out of their grasp, so thy flock around authors, actors, innovators, athletes, and even politicians, all in hopes of gathering some weak, vicarious, lackluster sense of accomplishment." He shook his head at the futility of it all. "Meanwhile, all the truly world-shaping decisions are made by a tiny elite with enough intelligence, education, or luck to break the mold of mediocrity. 

"Now, imagine if that most undervalued property, knowledge, was just another commodity to be bought, sold, and consume instantly. Take your kid to get his booster shots and pickup his high-school education in the same afternoon. Buy the evening edition at the newsstand, and pick up in an insiders understanding of the Middle Eastern economics for half price. 'Honey, if you pass by the store today, get me a dozen eggs and the knowledge on how to prepare blowfish.' And the medical field—HA!—they think doctors make the worst patients; imagine if they had to extract informed consent from _every_ patient they handled. 

"A true revolution, in every sense of the word, at every corner of the world, to every facet of life. Can you imagine someone in that society saying, 'Of course I'm right; I'm the expert'? 'Sure she may have invented it, but she would ever have had the knowledge needed to bring it to market?' 'There is no way an outsider could possibly understand?' 'Government policy is best left to those with the training to understand the issues'? They wouldn't dare—not unless they wanted to be laughed out of town. Suddenly, everyone will be a player in the game of life; everyone could chart the path of personal destiny. 

"It would be the greatest thing to ever happen...or perhaps the worst. It's impossible to guess, really. There's only one way to find out." 

His voice suddenly gained a note of cruel triumph. "And I will," he almost caressed the words. "After all, all it will take is a simple splash of water. 

"Genma, get the camera," Happosai said in his normal voice. "This is a moment that should be remembered forever." 

As Genma prepared to record the moment for posterity, Happosai carefully opened a heavily padded case and selected a flask from inside. After double-checking the label, he broke the seal and gingerly removed the rubber stopper. Getting a ready signal from his tripod-wielding assistant, he moved to pour the contents, but he hesitated at the last moment. 

"I christen thee Soun Tendo, because you will speed us along the path to enlightenment," Happosai announced before tipping the container.

* * *

ºoºoºoºoº  
Toy Dojo  
A Ranma ½ Fanfic  
by Wordblindness  
ºoºoºoºoº  
Chapter 1: The Making of a Man  
ºoºoºoºoº 

* * *

In many ways, the year I turned six was the most important one of my life. It was the age when I lost my first pet (a hamster) to the neighbor's cat, and it was the year I lost my first tooth (on the fist of the cat's eight-year-old owner). I started school, a place where I quickly learned the facts of life: you can't please everyone; rules are made to be broken; and girls are irritating (quickly amended to infuriating but intriguing, but that is another story). Most importantly, this was the year when I made the promise that would shape the rest of my life. 

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Up until then, life had been simple. My father, an intelligent but unambitious man, ran a small store for hobbyists and collectors. I can still see the glass cases that lined the walls, proudly displaying the results of his latest obsession, be it photography, electronics, carving, or collectibles. People would wander in just to see his latest display, and more often then not, they would leave with newly-bought kits in their hands and the glow of childlike enthusiasm in their eyes. Given the number of fields in which Father casually achieved the status of proficient amateur, he could have easily mastered any one of them, but that was never his goal. He loved that little store, and he loved the freedom it gave him. As long as he had enough to support his wife and son, he was happy. To me, it was a brilliant way to live, and I yearned for the day when I would follow in his footsteps. 

Then the miracle happened. After six years of trying, my parents finally produced a second child—a daughter. It was a glorious occasion, with the entire household with a festive spirit, but it was also a bringer of change—the type of change that a six-year-old boy could never be expected to understand. One day, Father calmly sat down at the breakfast table and announced that we were going to sell the store and move to the city. He had obtained a managerial position at a corporate outlet, and this would open up so many opportunities for the family and the children. Wouldn't that be nice? 

I spent a few seconds gaping at this base betrayal, and then I was off like a shot. Fighting back tears, I slammed open the door and raced downstairs. I can only imagine what was passing through my parents' heads at that time; my behavior must have come as a complete shock. As for myself, I was caught in an impotent cycle of rage and self-pity. Weren't we happy where we where? Why did things have to change? I spent a good ten minutes stomping through the store's aisles, thinking up increasingly elaborate ways to return my parents to sanity. 

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When my father found me, I was peevishly digging through a shelf of exotic bric-a-brac that had accumulated in the wake of discarded hobbies. I could feel him looming over me, like a dark angry mountain, but I continued with my investigation; I certainly wasn't going to make this any easier for him. 

Finally, he let out a long tired breath and deflated onto the floor across from me. He spent a few moments watching me poke through items before he spoke. 

"That's a good idea," he said. "We need to sort out the junk before we move." 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Well, we can hardly take it all with us, now can we?" he replied in his most reasonable voice. He managed to avoid my impatient glare by toying with a length of strange, supple material that he plucked out of the collection. 

"Why do we have to leave?" I pleaded. "You spent so much time getting all this stuff, and now you are just going to throw it all away. You _promised_ you would tell me about everything someday, but you were _lying_. It's not fair." 

My father exhaled slowly before speaking. "Sometimes in li—" he started, before reconsidering. His mouth compressed to a thin line as he thought. Suddenly, he took the string he had been holding and held it up for me to study. "Have I ever told you the story that goes with this?" 

I shook my head to indicate that he hadn't, but I wasn't entirely sure; his collection of stories was the most extensive of all of his hobbies. I settled down to listen. 

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"The story starts with an old Chinese fable," my father began. 

"Long ago, there were no rivers or streams on this world. Humankind was solely dependent on the grace of the gods, who sent rain to nourish the crops, which in turn nourished the people, who in turn sent up their grateful prayers. As time passed, the gods wearied of this boring cycle, and gradually, they became enthralled by more elegant pursuits. A time came when the land was afflicted with a drought like none ever seen. The plants whithered, and their dried husks blew away. The bare soil baked and cracked, and the people could only pray to the gods for deliverance, but if the gods heard anything, then they were too busy with their own affairs to be bothered. 

"Luckily, a group of four dragons noticed the disgraceful state of affairs as they frolicked overhead. Taking pity of the poor mortals' plight, they sought to intervene in the courts of heaven, but their efforts gained nothing but empty promises. No help would come soon—not from the gods. 

"Knowing that time was running out, the dragons decided to take matters into their own hands. Flying down to the sea, the dragons fetched giant mouthfuls of seawater, which they sprayed out over the land to form clouds. When the clouds were large enough, the dragons flew high into the sky, and cast down their shadows to cool the air. Their efforts bore fruit, and soon it was raining. The plants were revived, and the land healed. The people celebrated and cried their thanks up to their saviors. 

"Not everyone was so pleased with events. The heavens were burning with wrath at these presumptuous dragons. How dare these upstarts second-guess the actions of the gods? How dare they steal gratitude meant for their betters? The Jade Emperor, ruler of the gods, declared that the offenders freedom was forfeit. As punishment, they were to be captured and sealed under mountains." 

"Like Monkey?" I asked. 

"Yes," my father replied. "It was a very popular way to deal with troublemakers in those times. 

"Even in the face of this harsh punishment," he continued, "the dragons were completely unrepentant. In a final act of defiance, they transformed themselves into four mighty rivers so that they could continue helping people for all of eternity. In honor of the four, the rivers still carry their names: the Heilongjian, the Huanghe, the Changjiang, and the Zhujiang." 

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There was a short silence as my father considered the tale he had just told, and then he continued. 

"Several thousand years later, the man who sold me this," he said, indicating the item in his hand, "was born in a village near the shores of the Huanghe. 

"During his youth, the Chinese government was obsessed with proving that China was a progressive nation—a world leader. One way to prove this was through engineering projects of unprecedented scale. A popular program was the construction of a series of several dozen hydroelectric dams across Huanghe, thereby supplying the country with enormous amounts of cheap electricity. Many valleys were flooded, and sometimes interesting items were uncovered by the water. It soon became a sport among the local youths to search the shores for treasures. 

"Near the end of the project, a group of teenagers found _something_ floating at the edge one of the reservoirs. It appeared be the head of a large yellow and black animal. The head was as tall as a man, and several times that in length. It was formed of materials unlike anything they had ever seen, and the light acted strangely around it, almost making the disembodied head seem alive. They attempted to drag it to shore, but it was far too massive for them. As the current started pulling tugging at the object, the boys knew that no one would ever believe their tale without proof. Between them, they managed to produce a selection of hunting knives, stones, and tree branches, and they set about the grisly task of collecting trophies. After a lot of chopping, pulling, yanking, and tearing, they managed to remove a few teeth, some hide, and a few tufts of hair. After gathering together their prizes, they made their triumphant return to the village. 

"At first, no one believed their story, but the boys were able to produced their evidence. For a time, they were celebrities. Every one of them was asked to repeat the tale at least once a day. As is often the case, the tale started to grow. At some point, someone claimed that the head was the remains of the river itself, sundered from its body by the construction of the dam. Nobody knew who had said it first, but it just seemed right. 

"When the first death occurred, everyone thought it was a bizarre accident. The boy's parents found his remains in the morning, a pile of ashes still wearing his clothes and his dragon-fang necklace. The members of the village gathered together to discuss the event, and one well-traveled man remembered hearing something about cases of spontaneous combustion. The discussion moved on to determining a proper date for the funeral, and that was the end of the matter. 

"When the second boy died, there was no question that the supernatural was involved. He running through the village square, in plain sight of several witnesses, when he suddenly aged by a hundred years. His skin melted into wrinkles. He spit out loose teeth that suddenly filled his mouth. His hair suddenly lost all color and then fell out, leaving only a few clumps that had snagged on his dragon-hide headband. With a final gasp, he clasped his chest and keeled over dead. 

"In the next month, two more boys died. As their numbers dwindled, it soon became apparent that there was a curse following the boy that had desecrated the dragon's remains. Fearing for their lives, the three remaining members of the group fled in hoped of escaping their companion's fate. Twice, they stopped and tried to start new lives, thinking that they had outrun the spirits that plagued them. Two of them died this way: the first to a giant swarm of bees, the second when he just went mad one day and started clawing at his own flesh. 

"The final boy, now a young man, now knew that he would never be safe in China. He traveled to the coast and took a boat to Japan. I met him near the docks where he was selling his story and what he claimed where 'genuine dragon whiskers' in an effort to raise enough money to leave Asia completely." 

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After he finished the story, we sat for a few seconds before I broke the silence. "That story makes no sense! Somebody would have noticed a giant head when it reached the dam!" 

My father gave a small laugh. "Perhaps, but I thought the story was worth a few yen. Besides, it really is a strange material." He placed the 'dragon whisker' in my eager little hands before becoming a little more serious. "The point is that, it is sometime impossible to give everyone everything they want. When that happens, you just have to make a decision and stick to it. It's part of being a man." 

After assuring himself that he had broken through my tantrum, my father left to prepare for the coming day. 

I was left with my thoughts. Was that all it meant to be a man? To accept whatever life throws your way and pretend that it is okay? 

I gathered together everything I knew about life (which, at the age of six, was mostly gleanings from picture books, cartoons, and fables). The heroes in stories never settled for "good enough" or "look on the bright side." They would see some injustice, and they would fight it till their dying breath. If they couldn't save the day themselves, they would seek out friends and allies that could. That is what it should mean to be a man: if you see something wrong with the world, you change it. 

As I pondered the disparity between what was and what should be, I came to a horrible conclusion: my father was a good man, but he was no hero! Yes, I know, but to a six-year-old boy, it was a Earth-shattering revelation. I had always _known_ he would always be a little stronger and smarter than I could ever be. Now, I saw that there might be things he could have handled better, but he lacked the strength, or the courage, or the intelligence to do so. I still loved my dad and wanted to be like him in so many ways, but now I wished he could be a little more than he was. 

Well, if he couldn't, then I would! Suddenly, I remembered a phrase that I had seen in an old samurai movie I had once watched with my parents. "Man among men." 

When I grew up, no one and nothing would push me around. I would do what I wanted and would go where I chose. I would be a true _man among men_. 

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What? None of your decisions ever came back to haunt you?

* * *

**Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all associated characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, Fuji TV, and Viz Communications. I am borrowing them for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This is just an idea that has been kicking around since I read a couple nobody-is-what-they-seem fics a while ago. I originally meant for it to follow most of the major story arcs, but I'm too slow of a writer to make it practical. Besides, my sister stole most of my source material when she left for college. Expect a rough hodgepodge of manga, anime, and fanfic facts/assumptions/groupthink. 


	2. An Old Friend

The lunchtime rush was well over. The streets of business district were quickly becoming deserted as the last few stragglers hurried back to work. Most of the street vendors were closing down for the afternoon lull or had already left, but a few holdouts remained hopeful. A grizzled vendor stood behind one yatai, slowly wiping down his already spotless counters. Occasionally, he would glace around to check on the six-year-old child playing in the empty lot behind him. His patience was rewarded when one last customer hurried up to the stand. 

"Welcome to Kuonji's Okonomiyaki! What would you like today?" 

"Do you have anything extra spicy?" 

"Yes, in addition to a selection of sauces, I have a fresh batch of kimchee style yakisoba. Would you like to try some?" 

"No, on second thought, I would like fried spam and eggs." 

Kuonji eyed his customer closely: dull suit, plain face, small plastic shopping bag—in a word, nondescript. 

"I'm all out, but I can offer you this." The chef slid open a small compartment to a reveal roll of film and a cassette tape. 

The customer quickly retrieved the items before replacing them with the shopping bag. "Per agreement," he said before turning to leave. 

The chef frowned at the man's abrupt manner, but he decided to shrug it off. With well-practiced ease, he quickly closed down his stand. Trays of ingredients were sealed tightly and loaded onto insulated racks. The counter and seats folded up onto the side of the cart with a snap. The awning rolled up smoothly to be tied under the edge of the cart's roof. In less time then it takes most people to clear the breakfast table, a restaurant had been replaced with an overgrown travel accessory. 

"Usagi, let's go," the chef called as he finished. 

From behind him, the response came as a sing-song whine. "That's not my na-ame." 

He turned around to look at his daughter. She was working on something that involved shifting around dirt with an beat-up old spatula. It might have been mud pies baking or landscaping; it was hard to tell given that she was hardly taller than her tool. "I'm certain your mother would be surprised to hear that. She spent months picking your name out for you." 

The girl rolled her eyes in disgust. "It's just so, so..." she paused, her nose wrinkling in thought, "girlie girl." 

"As hard as it is to believe it at times: you are a girl,.your name _is_ Usagi, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, pick up your stuff so that we can get out of here." 

"Just a minute. I have to finish my extra special okonomiyaki sauce." The chef watched with a mixture of irritation and amusement as, with great formality, his daughter finished scooping a runny mixture of leaves and mud into a jar. After she had collected a full batch, she tied a cover over the jar's mouth and set about gathering her supplies. After a little bit of juggling, she managed to balance everything in her arms long enough to carry it all over to the yatai. 

"And what are we going to do with all this 'special sauce?'' he asked as he tried place her stuff where it wouldn't contaminate his cooking area. 

The little girls eyes lit up at the question. "I'm going to give it to Uncle Ran," she said. "_He_ agrees that Usagi is a stupid name, and I'm sure he really needs some good home cooking. I mean, last time we were there, he had this _stuuuupid_ woman for his assistant, and she was serving him like microwavable terriyaki, and he smiled at her like he was grateful and everything. He's so nice; he deserves to have a real woman around that can cook and take care of him and everything, not someone who sits around putting on makeup all the time. I think..." 

As the cart pulled away from the curb, it was the chef's turn to roll his eyes, this time at little girls and first crushes.

* * *

ºoºoºoºoº  
Toy Dojo  
A Ranma ½ Fanfic  
by Wordblindness  
ºoºoºoºoº  
Chapter 2: An Old Friend  
ºoºoºoºoº 

* * *

I first met Happosai during a job in Okayama. 

I had been hired as a last ditch effort of a developer who had been trying to gain control of a property near Kurashiki. He had been pushing for this deal through for several months, but every effort had been foiled by a particularly tenacious breed of local opposition. He had tried PR, bribery, intimidation, and blackmail; all of them failed. I was brought in because I had shown a talent for navigating the gray areas of the law in other endeavors. Real estate was, no pun intended, new ground for me, but the arsenal of conventional tactics had been depleted. He was willing to try a fresh approach. 

One night, after an evening of productive snooping, I had returned, along with three of my associates, to the old granary that was serving as my base of operations. Anxious to move on to more entertaining pursuits, we quickly set about breaking down and storing our equipment. 

As we were finishing up, I looked up and noticed that we were no longer alone in the room. A small figure lurked near the doorway, quietly cackling as it peered out into the night. Wondering how a kid had gotten in without arousing any attention, I caught the eye of one of my assistants and signaled for him to take care of the pest. 

The rest of us moved quickly to complete our task, and I had just locked the storage closet when the entire rear wall rattled from a solid impact. I turned to the front door, ready to scold my employee for his excessive use of force, but instead I froze in shock. 

I was looking at what had to be the most singular person I had ever met. It was not his small stature that was so surprising, nor was it his faux ninja suit. The fluid manner in which he twirled his pipe was did give me pause, as did the monstrous bag over his shoulder, but they were not truly strange (just odd). What puzzled me was the glowing vitality that contrasted so sharply with his advanced age. 

He was clearly old, perhaps as old as anyone I had ever met. He carried all standard signs of age: white hair, wrinkled and spotted skin, missing teeth, and swollen joints, but this didn't seem to slow him down. There was something in his eyes, his posture, and a hundred other small details; something in me screamed that this was not a man to dismiss. He just seemed more...solid than he should be. 

It was like looking at an old painting. Over time, pigments had faded. The canvas had gained a wrinkles and sags. With the passage of time, every single point had gone through some metamorphosis, but the image of proud warrior could still be seen, with eyes that could pierce through the veil of time. Right below the surface of this old man, there was a spirit completely undiminished by age. Perhaps it was trapped in the body of a mummified monkey, but it was there. 

I made a mental note to leave enough of him for questioning. If he used some sort of herbal remedy to achieve the effect, I could make a bundle off the information. 

Still, no matter how spirited, twenty kilos of wrinkled gnome shouldn't have been able to throw around a hundred kilos of solid muscle. Perhaps, I would have to revise my hiring policies; given the recent trend toward technical operations, I had been starting to favor brains over brawn. This is what I got for forgetting that clichés become cliché for a reason. Thugs should be large, strong, cruel, and stupid; these qualities assure the proper aptitude in breaking small objects. 

A quick glance behind me confirmed that my soon-to-be-ex-employee was slumped, unconscious, against the far wall. My two remaining men were moving to surround the intruder. I adjusted my position it give us each the maximum possible room to work. 

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" I barked at the intruder. 

Clearly unimpressed, he gave a sort of uninformative wave of his pipe. "Oh, you know. Just your average elderly citizen, out for a nighttime stroll through town," he mocked. "At my age it's always good to get in some light exercise." His scornful gaze made it clear that we rated somewhere below Jazzercise. 

Snarling at his subtle show of contempt, the three of us moved forward to teach the little wise-ass a lesson: there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Our property line was prime example. 

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The fight started at weird, and it quickly moved on to surreal. 

As my team closed in on our opponent, he paid us no heed. All of his attention seemed to be focused on his spinning pipe. I couldn't help wondering what he was doing. The pipe spun faster and faster, until it seemed to morph into a solid disk. Strangely, the surface of the disk was not symmetrical; various marks and stains seemed to cover its surface. When I concentrated hard enough, I could see flickering patterns. They almost seemed to form images, but every time I tried to make them out, they would shift to a new form. The overall effect was...almost...hypnotic. 

Damn! 

I managed to shake myself out of the trace just in time to feel the blow that sent me spinning across the room. A couple of bruises earned me enough control to roll back onto my feet. A glance around the room convinced me that it might have been a better idea to land on my head. My two allies were laid out across the floor. 

My opponent gave me an amused look as I staggered into a wall. "What the matter? Don't want to fight without your boyfriends' help? Can't bully a poor defenseless old man without outnumbering him three to one? That's youngsters these days—nothing but a bunch of whiny little pansies. Why, in my day..." 

Disregarding his gibber, I moved forward for my next attack. This time, I made damn sure not to look directly at that pipe again. 

_Wham!_ Pulling a couple pieces of the closet door from under me, I paused to reassess my situation. Apparently, ignoring an instrument of blunt trauma was an unsound tactic. I was starting to suspect that I was slightly outclassed in terms of martial skill. I needed some sort of an edge. I unconsciously reached for the small piece of string that held back my hair, but I pulled my hand back at the last instant. This situation was not that drastic. Looking around the closet, I tried to find something I could use. Picking up a container labeled "flash powder," I started to formulate a plan. 

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I have never considered waking up to be anything more than a necessary evil. It is one of the few things I detest more than self-righteous politicians. Regaining consciousness in the middle of what sounded like campaign speech was like touring my own personal corner of hell. Sitting up, I identified my impromptu pillow as a somewhat spindly bar table. After almost losing my balance on my first attempt to sit up, I contented myself with slumping against the wall in a somewhat vertical manner. As I slowly regained strength and clarity, I turned my attention to my surroundings. 

"...and unwilling to see a senior citizen come to harm, he selflessly threw himself into harms way, single-handedly driving the gang of hooligans away from me. Yet, your establishment refuses to serve him because of a few scuff marks he picked up in..." 

Just great. Apparently the geezer didn't need a pipe to pull off his little feats of hypnotism. A full barroom of men sat spellbound as the little demon, now dressed in a frumpy suit, harangued a sheepish bartender. Every few seconds, the orator gave a theatrical pause so that the audience could roar its approval. 

Looking down at myself, I considered the collection scorched rags that hung off my body. If I was a bartender, would I admit someone who was wearing this? After mulling over the question over for a bit, I decided that, yes, I would. Who could possibly need a drink more than me right now? Satisfied with my impeccable logic, I started hunting around for my rightful bounty. 

As if summoned by my thoughts, my own personal angel of mercy came toward the table, bearing a carafe almost as large as himself. Hopping up onto another stool, he produced cups and poured us each a drink. With a wordless toast, we each threw back our first of the evening. 

"I gather that, after all that fuss, we will not be bothered by a bill this evening," I quipped. 

His face froze, and for few uncomfortable seconds, he focused on me with an intense gaze. Then, his face broke into a grin. "You're a quick one, Ran, but Nodoka always does say that about you." 

"Ah, yes. Nodoka." That certainly explained a lot. It would have only taken one look at my face to see the resemblance. Nodoka and Ran: Calm and Chaos—way back when, someone had pinned us the ironic nicknames. I shouldn't have been surprised that she kept hers; I still used mine. "How is Little Sister? I have heard so little of her since she threw in with the Great Pervert." 

If Happosai was surprised by my knowledge of his own sardonic title, he didn't show it. That was a shame; it had been a pain getting even that much information on Nodoka's whereabouts. His only response was a vague "well enough." 

"Hmm. That's good." I put on an expectant expression, hoping to force out more information. 

Happosai gave me a sly look over his cup. "Sometimes, I do worry about her overactive imagination." 

"Ehk?" I choked. "Nodoka? Imagination?" I wouldn't have been surprised if he had called _Nodoka_ overactive, but her imagination was another matter. 

"_Yes_, she seems to get confused every time a fight fails to reduce a building to rubble. She tells these crazy stories about fights where, say, burning a building down would make a good diversion." 

I was not breaking eye contact; I just needed to scratch an itch on the back of my head. "I was just going for a blinding flash. Somehow, the fights always seem to get a little out of hand." 

"A little? That building was over a hundred years old." 

"I know. I had to put down the cash deposit." 

"You could have killed your friends." 

I shrugged. "They're cheap thugs. That's what they're there for." 

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Over all, it was a pretty good night: a good fight, some explosions, and a lot of booze. 

While basking in his own martial superiority, Happosai was an amusing drinking partner. He had millions of little stories and anecdotes that he would tell any time the mood struck him. They might be obscene or inspirational; he didn't seem to care as long as they could gain a laugh. 

The ones I found the most fascinating where the ones that he claimed were first hand. They invariably started with "about ten year ago," but this was more of a storytelling convention than an actual statement of setting. They shared a common theme of fantastic—demons, ghosts, gods, heroes, curses, blessings, fate, destiny, and true love—but that was not what caught my interest. 

They were about a philosophy in life. It was not an especially proud or noble way, but it had a sort of simple appeal. The hero, Happosai, would walk, unprepared, into a bizarre situation and win, not because he was better, but because he was willing to totally disregard the laws of men, gods, physics, and common sense to win his prize. I didn't know how far to believe him, but that didn't stop the alternating waves of amusement and horror that I experienced at his tales. 

About ten years ago, he and two of his pupils embarked upon a night of debauchery so great that—well, it should suffice to say that, three countries subsequently banned the ownership of any piece of tobacco paraphernalia longer than the owners arm. 

About ten years ago, he had found a way to ascend to a higher state of being, where he beheld the true nature of reality in all its terrible glory, and he immediately returned in disgust after realizing that it had nothing to do with booze or young women. 

About ten years ago, elegant geisha would ride up and down the canal outside, plying their wealthy clients with expensive delicacies, and it was still technically illegal for him to come within arms-length of the waterway. 

He had won frivolous lawsuits, and he had saved entire species from extinction. He had led and trained armies. He had started and foiled rebellions. He had explored places were no other human being has set eyes. It wasn't really clear what he feats he had yet to accomplish, but I imagined most of them required staying in one place for any amount of time. 

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In return, I told him a little what I did. As some things are not discussed in a public setting, it eventually turned into a discussion of my current assignment. 

"So," I narrated. "The audit revealed that, while the area's supernatural reputation had cast the shrine owners in the role of its stewards, their original grant gave them ownership of only a small portion of that area. Legally, there was little they could do to stop the sale." 

"So, what went wrong?" he prompted on cue. 

"Politics as usual. The locals were already riled up about the 'greedy thieving real estate bastard.' Anything smacking of further interference with the shrine's priest or his duties would have immediately blown the whole deal." 

"I think I see where this is leading. Go on." 

"Over the centuries, the whole basin has become riddled with various sites of religious significance. Naturally, as they are on 'his' land, the priest from the shrine handles the upkeep on all of them." I arranged several containers to demonstrate. "If this is the shrine, then this a holy tree. Someone fought a demon here. That spill is the spring traveling pilgrims used to use, and so on, and so forth. There is no sizable piece of land that isn't within a stone's throw from his weekly rounds. Given the current situation, there is no development plan that would be acceptable to the public. 

"That's were this comes in," I said, slipping a small cup into the pattern, "A natural amphitheater, this hidden alcove heard the sermons of several 16th century Jesuit missionaries. I see it as our duty to see that this important memorial return to the hands of its rightful owners—" 

"So that you can ride in on their coattails," finished Happosai. 

"Everybody's a cynic these days. We just want everyone to have a place to worship freely and a place to call home. Is that so wrong?" 

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It is impossible for me to fully describe the man I came to know over the following years. It took me a long time to even start to understand Happosai, and that was through firsthand experience. He was one of those rare people genuinely outside of the normal limits. Mere words can not lend the insight needed to understand someone like him; you must experience the laughter, embarrassment, hope, and disgust that his mere presence can inspire. There are labels I can paste on him, but they are just pigeonholes, invitations to underestimate, misunderstand, and dismiss him. Never the less, I will attempt to describe why I was both fascinated and repulsed by his activities. 

Happosai's deepest, most cherished belief was that every person is born with unlimited potential. There is no challenge that can not be met, no limit that can't be surpassed, and no enemy that can't be vanquished. The problem is that nobody ever realizes even a small portion of this potential. 

In Happosai's eyes, the sole cause of this failure was self-imposed limitations. In particular, he blamed the structure of society. He had an utter contempt for most laws, rules, and taboos; they were means of limiting freedom and crushing the spirit. Science and mysticism were just useless appendages of technology and magic; they were used more useful for explaining away possibilities than expanding them. The only worthwhile civilization would be one that allowed the individual to achieve ever greater heights. Happosai was ready and willing to do whatever it took to make that place a reality. 

What did that make Happosai? 

Eccentric? Possibly, but there was not a large baseline of multi-centennial martial arts masters to compare him against. Perhaps it was normal for them to want to change the world. 

Superstitious? I once thought so, but I eventually learned better. He could and did prove that there was more to the world than I was ready to accepted. Each time, he would laugh at my attempts to fit new facts into a scientific framework. If I were to condemn him for his belief in magic or his indifference toward science, I would have to take a good look at what that made me. 

Anarchic? Somewhat. He showed an utter contempt for most laws, rules, and taboos, but this was on a case by case basis. Some would call him culturally insensitive, and I think he would wear the title with pride. 

Megalomaniac? Yes, but only by the strictest definition. He didn't really want wealth or power, he just thought everyone else was really, really stupid. He was sure that if he didn't make the grand gestures, then nobody would. 

I was never really taken in by Happosai's vision, but I had nothing against it. I had traveled enough that I could see hypocrisy inherent in far too many existing institutions. If he thought he could do better, more power to him. I wasn't an idealist, and I didn't want to get involved. As good as the payoffs could be, I learned to be weary of Happosai's plans. You can't really trust anybody that likes to play with random magical artifacts and untested technology. His followers were worse—especially my sister: I never met anyone else with such a talent for riling people up. The whole incident with the pandas just drove the point home. 

That does not mean I didn't do any business with Happosai. On occasion, he would ask me for some small favor, and in return, he would offer me a valuable piece of information. I made a fortune on one temple alone. That engineering firms were really interested when they verified that those clockwork traps had lasted for over a thousand years. Imagine the fool that made his way through that death trap for a few pieces of gold! 

It was a good arrangement, and things would have stayed that way if I hadn't make the mistake of dealing with the wrong reporter.

* * *

**Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all associated characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, Fuji TV, and Viz Communications. I am borrowing them for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I'm not quite happy with parts of this chapter, but I want to push on to the meat of the story before I get bogged down in the details. It I get that far, I may rewrite this chapter later. 


	3. Unexpected Trouble

The official travel brochure listed the place as "a quaint hamlet, deliciously off the beaten track." To the watchers on the overlooking hill, it was just another grimy little truck stop at the ass-end of China. A dozen unpainted shacks hugged the edges of the single, narrow, pock-marked road. On occasion, an aging truck would coast up to the single gas-pump long enough to replenish the driver's supply of alcohol and gasoline. A trickle of people stopped at the government office to post mail. The small, bleak hotel at the edge of town sat deserted. The only other signs of habitation were a few overgrown paths that wandered off into the wilderness. Presumably, there was some sort of local industry or craft that justified the town's existence, but if so, there was no sight of it near town. Perhaps it was down one of the pathways. 

As the sun approached its zenith, the air shimmered in the summer heat. The buildings had been rendered quite unbearable, and most inhabitants had long ago fled to more amiable surroundings. A couple of gas station attendants watched with envy as a gaggle of children ran, screaming, into the trees. 

On top of the hill, the two watchers had decided to make their move. A cacophony of rustling followed their attempts to work their way out of the concealing bushes. With a final crescendo of snapping twigs, they came rolling out of the undergrowth and landed in a twisted heap. After a few seconds of pushing and shoving, the tangle of limbs resolved itself into a short redhead and a panda outfitted in martial arts gi. 

"Right," said the redhead. "You wait here, and I'll make the call." 

"Rurr rurau ree?" asked the panda. 

"No, you can't come," sighed the redhead. "I think someone would notice a giant panda parading through town." 

"Rrrr! Wraa waa war, wra waar wrarr," complained the panda. 

"Yes, you are, and that's beside the point. If too many people spot us, the Amazons will getting a new panda-skin rug. Do you really need to go that badly?" 

Clearly unhappy with her logic, the panda waddled off to perform a belly-flop into the nearest puddle of shade. 

Smiling smugly, the redhead turned to made her way down to the town. After emerging from the brush behind the filling station, she a minute peering around corners and through windows. All of the attendants were out front, trying to escape the heat. 

Satisfied, the redhead moved to the back door. After a minute of probing with a pocket knife, she managed trip the door latch. Easing the door open a crack, she peered into the back room. There was barely enough room to contain the two chairs, a small card table, and an oppressive heat. The table was currently doubling as a desk with piles of paperwork covering every inch of the surface. The redhead carefully propped open the door, hoping that the heat would take the hint and vacate the premises. 

After a few seconds of digging through piles of records, she eventually traced a cord to the buried phone. Lifting the receiver, she started to dial. After a few dozen digits and a couple of operators, she finally managed to complete her call. 

"Hello, this is the Happy Bathhouse. How may I help you?" came a distant voice. 

Taking a deep breath, she replied, "This is Nodoka. We've secured the water supply, but there were a few...snags."

* * *

ºoºoºoºoº  
Toy Dojo  
A Ranma ½ Fanfic  
by Wordblindness  
ºoºoºoºoº  
Chapter 3: Unexpected Trouble  
ºoºoºoºoº 

* * *

The job looked simple enough. A reporter was doing an exposé on the government of Zeitverschwendung, and he needed some special equipment slipped past his government minders. I didn't really understand the point; he couldn't pronounce the country's name or name its key exports, but he was willing to risk his life for **The Truth**. Well, it was his money and his life; who was I to tell him what to do? 

When they weren't being led around by the hand, all reporters visiting the dump had to spend their time at the government-run hotel where they could be closely monitored. Of course, their minders had _way_ too much faith in the third-rate surveillance systems. After tapping into the hotel's closed-circuit feed, I determined that the only real obstacle would be the front lobby. There was the standard metal detector and x-ray units, followed by an area set aside for hand-searches. Luckily, they didn't have enough creativity to stagger searches; it was every fourth person, regular as clockwork. 

Events started off perfectly on cue. At exactly 11:45 a.m., I stepped into line at the security checkpoint. It was nearing the end of the morning shift, so the guards were at their most distracted. A few seconds later, the man at the front of the line was pulled aside to be searched. Counting back through the line, I confirmed that I had timed everything perfectly. Even if one or two people dropped out of line, I wouldn't be searched. Looking forward, I saw that the x-ray technician was almost asleep at his station. Good—the reporter's equipment was designed to foil detection, but every little bit helps. It looked like smooth sailing ahead. 

Then it happened. A guard suddenly got a strange look on his face. After some hurried whispers with his supervisor, he dashed down a hallway. Had he spotted something? Was there something else happening? Should I take off? Pushing these questions aside, I tried to find an unobtrusive way to look down that hallway. By pretending to tie my shoes, I was able to move over the half-meter required to see. I was just quick enough to spot the guard diving into a restroom, hand over mouth. Adding up the facts, I sighed in relief. It looked like he had better things to do than cause me trouble. With any luck, he would finish his shift in there, and I would never see him again. 

Looking back, I don't know what I could have done differently. There is just a certain amount of time you expect someone to spend gone after rushing off toward the nearest toilet. It's just common sense. I almost had to admire the dedication of that guard: rushing back from spewing up his guts and immediately attempting to search the first person in line. Unfortunately for him, that person was me. As he bent over to look into my bag, I slammed my foot into his already tender stomach and made a break for the front door. 

The whole system worked against the guards. They were positioned to keep people out, not in. If I had tried to run further into the hotel, they would have had a clear shot at me. Instead, I went through one of the flimsy partitions separating the checkpoint from unsecured area. One I was through the gap, I only had to deal with the single guard watching the door, and he had been startled when the partition slapped into the ground. A simple shove sent him sprawling long enough for me to run outside. 

There was no time to be subtle, so I continued running. After making a couple turns, I reached my destination. I made a quick detour through an empty building, locking doors along the way. The final door dumped me out into a narrow alley. After checking for watchers, I unlocked the door to the next building and stepped into the room where I had been staying. 

I quickly stripped off my suit, and replaced it with a plain t-shirt and a worn pair of overalls. A tin of grease gave my skin a deep caramel tone, and a bandanna and a pair of sunglasses obscured the bone structure of my face. By the time the guards broke down the door to the next building in search of a middle-aged Japanese businessman, the newest member of the country's ethnic working class was walking down a street in the opposite direction. 

Twenty minutes at a hurried pace took me too an older part of town. Small, tightly-packed houses cut their way up and down the hilly terrain. The place was an iron-monger's dream, with ornamental fences jealously guarding the small but colorful gardens that bordered each house. Unfortunately, any potential for tranquility in the scene was marred by the haphazard addition of wooden planks and nets to the fences. These fences now served a far more functional purpose than their designers ever intended. Occasionally, I would come across a women tending to her garden. In every case, I was skewered with a hostile stare until I passed out of sight. 

It was with a great deal of relief that I came across a small cluster of stores and shops. Pulling out a small slip of paper, I compared it to signs until I came across a tent holding a small farmer's market. Ducking through a flaw, I went over talked to the proprietor. After a large amount of hand waving and a small bribe, he led me down a few buildings and introduced me to another man. After negotiating a somewhat higher fee, I found myself immersed in the pungent aroma of onions as I scrambled into the back of a rickety old truck. 

As we drove off, I saw the market owner running back to confront a soldier who was entering his tent with a large tracking dog. As the merchant's voice rose in outrage, more and more people started to exit buildings to watch the proceedings. I laid back to try and get some sleep. Behind us, I could hear the distant sounds of gunfire. It was going to be a long trip. 

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It had been a long trip—much longer than I anticipated. It didn't help that the entire country seemed to go mad at once. Those that weren't out, adding to the chaos, were all hunched over their televisions, just trying to figure out who they would work for the next day. In retrospect, I would have been better off bushwhacking straight toward the nearest border. Instead, I wasted a week working my way down the road, desperately looking for a ride out of the country. I knew that I was leaving a path that a blind fool could follow, but I needed to put some distance behind me. Eventually, I made it out of the country and to the nearest airport. 

Knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I emptied out my emergency fund. After a week of burning cash, I was the proud new owner a maze of false leads, the identity of a unreported heart-attack victim, and a one-year lease on an apartment. The effort wouldn't hide me from the scrutiny of any true world power, but I was sure it would be sufficient for my purposes. If I kept my head down, it would be easy to disappear into a city the size of Tokyo. After a few months, everything would blow over. 

Unfortunately, time constraints didn't really give me the chance to deal with anything but security. The apartment came with bare furnishings, and that was it. I started to go stir crazy after the first week of confinement. There wasn't anything actively wrong with the apartment; I had just gotten tired of looking at the same things every day: bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen, drab art prints, bed, table, chairs, couch, and television. To avoid showing my face in public, I was eating only what I could get delivered. The ancient television only received broadcast stations. The place was monotony distilled. Every day was the same old routine. Every day, the walls moved a little closer. 

I started putting serious thought about sneaking out some night to get a few things. Put a few plants here, nail up a few paintings, repaint the walls, get some food in the refrigerator, fill a bookshelf, kill my neighbor—with a little hard work, the place could be livable. If nothing else, redecorating would have burnt a few hours. Only a years of ingrained habit held me back from risking my cover. Every day, it was holding me back less. 

Eventually, I had to face facts: this job was making me old before my time. When I was younger, a few months of spent watching television and ordering delivery was no real chore. I had all the time in the world; I could afford to be patient. Now, at the ripe old age of forty-five, I did not want to waste my final few active years stagnating. Even eating had lost most of its appeal; who knows how much of my health was being stolen by greasy take-out? How much worse was hunger than the constant indigestion? 

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Then, the postcard came. 

It was three weeks in; my entire world now consisted of my tiny apartment, and it was becoming harder and harder to maintain a proper perspective. Things that I used to taking for granted had become obsessions. As a man, I had certain desires I needed to indulge, and I'm not talking about a penchant for power tools. That's right: I was hungry for real food; delivery just didn't cut it. I needed a juicy hamburger, or some lightly grilled salmon, or just about anything that came served on a real plate. Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything about it, not without going into public and risking exposure. I hadn't quite forgotten that things could get worse. 

To avoid one source of temptation, I had developed one simple rule: don't receive mail; ignore it. This may seem a little extreme, but boredom, combined with a constant lack of variety, can turn even a simple sheet of fast food coupons into an diabolic instrument of torture. I would have simply let the junk mail compost in my mailbox, but that might have attracted the wrong sort of attention. Once a week, the contents of my mailbox caught a direct connection to the nearest trashcan. 

As the current week's stack landed in the bin, my eye caught a cheesecake shot on top. On a whim, I fished it back out. It was a shame to waste any of my precious wall-gazing time on potential junk mail, but some things deserve at least a passing glance. 

A quick look identified it as one of those slightly racy cards that fill racks at resorts everywhere. You know, the ones that a certain type of tourist buys, so that he can remember the good time he didn't have the balls to have. I think this was the first time I had ever seen one of them delivered through the mail. Most people realize that, for someone stuck back at work, a few acres of tropical beach are often even more liberating than an enormous expanse of bare flesh. I turned it over, sure that some vacationer had bungled a neighbor's address. Surprisingly, it was labeled with my current name and address. Curious, I read the message. 

Old Buddy— 

Got your address from one of your new  
friends. He was planning to call on you,  
but after a few drinks, he was dead to the  
world. Don't worry about being lonely.  
All new & old friends working on big surprise  
for you. 

Come see me down by canal. Lots of  
interesting things to do. It'll make a  
new person of you. You'll enjoy it. I  
Promise!! 

               —Happy 

I started to play with the postcard nervously. This was bad! In my experience, "old buddy" is short for "poor sucker that I am about to take to the cleaners." Coming from Happosai, it was even more worrisome. Happosai wouldn't try to cheat a friend, but he was hardly altruistic. He would expect a favor in return, and his concept of what constituted a reasonable favor was always a bit skewed. In this case, he would expect me to join this new project and thank him for such a fine opportunity. I had been through all this before, and I had the scars (among other things) to prove it. It is often better to promise away your first born child than to let Happosai save your life. 

I guess the whole part about all the people after my blood wasn't good either. From the sound of it, the Zeits had dug up everyone I had ever pissed off over the course of a lifetime. I shuttered to think what would happen if they caught me; there wouldn't be enough left to hurry. From what Happosai hinted, one of them had managed to track me down after only a few weeks. That spoke tons about the money and manpower they were willing to invest in revenge. 

I was really starting to hate that bloodthirsty little tin-pot dictatorship. All I did was smuggle a few harmless pieces of equipment through security, and I'm treated like some sort of international terrorist. Okay, maybe I was the indirect cause of a race riot, but that wasn't really my fault. It was an inevitable result of their own government policy. Why else had the duke's detractors been planning to use the riots as a cover for their coup attempt? He should thank me for triggering events before the revolutionaries could fully prepare. 

With the arrival of Happosai's message, I was faced with a choice. I could play it safe and run again, admitting that I was over the hill, or I could join Happosai, risking everything in one really stupid gamble. 

There was really no choice; I would accept Happosai's offer, if for no other reason than to get out of that dump. It was risky, but so was running from assassins. If my time was up, I chose to see death coming. 

Besides, it would be nice to see how the place had changed in over the years. 

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

As I got off the train in Kurashiki, I started looking around the station for my guide. It was the only logical place to meet me. The train was fast and relatively anonymous, so I would be a great fool to travel any other way. If I rode the train, I had to pass through the station. There should have been someone there to pick me up. After ten minutes of looking and a stop at the vending machines—nobody should ever be forced to go for a month without chocolate—I heard the next train pull in to the station. I gave up and left in disgust. 

Outside the station, I tried to work out my next move. While sipping at the strange concoction of ice, sugar, and caffeine I had found at a nearby booth, I came up with a plan. Happosai had mentioned a canal in his postcard. I had interpreted this as a reference to Kurashiki, because we had first met near the canal there. Perhaps he had been more literal than I thought. 

After a short taxi ride, I made it to the Historic District that ran along the canal. This area was a less that ideal setting to meet someone, with much more ground to cover and a slew of businesses. I could have sent out a dozen searchers, and I wouldn't be sure to find anyone. Besides, the vendors had lines and were being stingy with the condiments. 

After wandering around, I spotted the bar from my first meeting with Happosai. Surely, he would have left some message there. I entered the bar and found that, sometime in the last few years, it had been remodeled as an Italian restaurant. No one would admit to knowing a Happosai or anyone of his general description. Not wanting to be rude, I stayed for some stuffed pasta and a crepe—a good choice over take-out any day. 

At a loss, but with a full belly, I wandered around until a found a small public park. I sat down on a bench, and admired the well-sculpted topiary. Looking around, I tried to figure out where I was. This buildings in this area had always been fairly tightly packed, and I didn't remember there being any gaps as large enough for a park all those years ago. They would have had to tear down a building for that much space, but only an idiot would damage any of these buildings. Their historical value made them far too expensive for that. 

I wondered why I felt that I was forgetting something. Shrugging, I decided I was done searching for the day. 

As I exited the park, I noticed a flier posted where it would be seen by anyone walking on the path.. 

Feel like the world is out to get you?  
Need a safe haven from the daily grind?  
Then head right down to the Happy Bathhouse.  
Just take a left.... 

I decided that a nice warm soak was exactly what I needed to relax. After carefully memorizing the directions, I made my way to the bathhouse. As I walked through the entrance, I fished through my pockets for coins. Finding the correct amount, I looked up just in time to see the attendant do a double-take. Hurrying forward, she practically shoved me through a side door with a quick "this way, sir. They have been waiting for you." 

I spent a few seconds just blinking at the door that had been shut in my face. That had been unusual. Unable to work out what had just happened, I returned the coins to my pocket and turned around to see where I was. 

I was standing at the beginning of a short hallway containing five doorways and a dead-end. Judging by the bare floors and walls, this was the service section of the building. An orderly stack of boxes in the dead-end showed an ancient attempt at organization, but the walls were now lined with haphazard piles of cleaning and tiling supplies. 

Picking my way through the mess, I started checking the doorways. The first pair of doors yielded a small restroom and the boiler room. I passed on without slowing. Finally, at the third door, I found someone. A heavyset man sat reading a newspaper. Around the edges, I spotted a white gi and a handkerchief. 

"Saotome, what have you done to yourself? You look terrible," I greeted in mock horror. It wasn't that I had anything against the man; he just rubbed me the wrong way. It always felt like he was about to throw his arm around my shoulders and offer me a great deal on a used car. I knew it was unfair to act on the impulse, but I couldn't help myself. Besides, his current outfit did nothing to hide his weight or his baldness. 

"At least I'm not stupid to accept a cure for baldness from the old fart." Okay, that was true, but at least I didn't live under the delusion that I could reclaim my youth. "Finally decided to show up, huh? We thought you would show up days ago." 

"Days ago? But I only got the postcard toda—oh. Hehe. Well, I don't really check my mail that much anymore. The message was probably sitting in my mailbox for a while." No wonder nobody had been waiting for me at the station. 

"Typical, just typical. Half the world is hunting for you, and you almost get caught because you couldn't be bothered to check the mail." 

"Well, nobody was supposed to know where I was," I complained. "And it wasn't half the world; it was just one little dung-hole. Why should I have been worried that they would find me?" 

From the look on Saotome's face, I might as well have asked, "Godzilla who?" 

"What?" I snapped. 

With a growing smirk, Saotome flipped through the sections and threw the business section at me. "You should pay more attention to the news. When you choose to screw up, you don't use half measures." 

As I read the headline, I suddenly felt a headache coming on. "Zeits Riots Delay Mines." 

"Yeah, some of the most accessible deposits of beryllium in the world. They were right in the middle of trade negotiations when the riots broke out. The duke has closed down all operations and negotiations until such time as he can feel that his workers are safe. There is a strong feeling in the international community that a the head of the vicious terrorist—that would be you—would quell all fears." 

I slumped down across the table from Saotome. "Cute, real cute. I'm assuming that, since you called me here, you have some way to hide me." 

Saotome suddenly gained a smug aura of knowledge. "Oh, we have something, all right," he pronounced. "But I thing the Master wanted to show you that personally." 

I glanced around the room, half expecting Happosai to appear on cue. "Where is the old geezer, anyway?" 

Saotome gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "Our public front is a bath house, and we're in the middle of the evening rush. You figure it out." 

Of course. I should have been able to work that one out for myself. There was nothing to do but wait until Happosai was done. I considered convincing Saotome to fetch something to eat, but experience indicated that no food would survive the trip back with him. 

To pass the time, I started skimming over the remainder of the business section. On the second page, I found a more in-depth article on the mineral resources of Zeitverschwendung. An extensive survey had identified deposits of over sixty minerals, metals, and gems, including uranium, beryllium, gold, silver, iron, beryl, ruby, emerald, sapphire, and jade. Several analysts were already calling it an area of "critical strategic importance." It was good to know that someone was happy. 

It was at that moment that I felt the water pour over me, and then everything changed.

* * *

**Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all associated characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, Fuji TV, and Viz Communications. I am borrowing them for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

**Author's Notes:** On this chapter, I learned that while flashbacks are often awkward, rewriting a chapter in chronological order is worse. Passages that worked really nice before contained redundancies when moved next to each other. Lots of foreshadowing had to be trimmed because it now took place afterward. Oh well, them's the breaks. 


	4. A Little Info

The Jusenkyou Guide sighed as his door slammed open. Without turning from his work, he called out to the intruder, "So sorry. I've been meaning to install a rotating door there. It just not right that guests be bothered with complex tasks such as turning a doorknob." 

His polite apology was countered by the approach of heavy footfalls. Painting on a fake smile, the guide turned to face his guest. The first glance prompted another look-over. One and a half meters of voluptuous curves and righteous female indignation, one hand pulled back to deliver a slap, all rapidly froze as she took in the sight of the beaker of liquid in his rubber-clad hands. Her eyes quickly traced a path from the liquid, out through the hut's crude window, to the springs outside, and back again. By the time the rebound carried her eyes to the cup, her posture was entirely casual, a hand raised to brush a lock of lavender hair back from one lovely ear. 

The guide blinked distractedly for a few seconds, and then noticed the way that the amazon's eyes followed his hand. After a moment's thought, he came to a realization. 

"Oh, how rude of me. You must want something to drink after walking all the way from Joketsuzoku. Sit down. I'll find you something. You really don't want to drink this," he said, motioning with his other hand. 

The comment was enough to break her out of her stupor. She drew her self up and, perhaps coincidentally, away from the container. "You led that redhead witch to the village. Where is she?" 

"Oh! The Kiss of Death. Yes. I don't suppose..." he began and then flinched at her glare. "No, I don't suppose so. Far be it from me to sick my nose in Joketsuzoku business. You should find what you want in the guest registry over there. It should be the last entry." 

The amazon eyed him suspiciously before picking up the indicated item. She quickly flipped through the pages until she found the correct entry. "Ranma," she hissed. She spent a few more seconds looking over the book before she tossed it aside. Without any further acknowledgment of the guide's existence, she stormed out the door. 

The guide stared after her blankly for the next few seconds. "Strange girl," he noted, and turned back to the table. 

In front of him, a parchment had been stretched out for cleaning. After using a glass rod to stir up the mixture he was holding, the guide used the resultant foam to wet a small brush. A few well-practiced passes of the brush removed the dirt from a palm-sized portion of the material. 

While he waited for the excess fluid to evaporate, the guide allowed his mind to wander. "Poor Miss Customer and Mr. Panda. All the crazies are out for blood now. I wouldn't want to be in there when they finally catch up."

* * *

ºoºoºoºoº  
Toy Dojo  
A Ranma ½ Fanfic  
by Wordblindness  
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Chapter 4: A Little Info  
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**Splash.** Even before wiped the water out of my eyes, I knew something was horribly wrong. Looking down, I took inventory. 

Ten fingers: check  
Ten toes: check  
Two of these: check  
One of those: check 

I wondered why I had been so worried. What a wacky imagination I had, thinking that I could feel my body shift around. What were the chances of that happening? 

**Splash.** Even before wiped the water out of my eyes, I knew everything would still be perfectly fine. Nothing wrong here! I glanced down. 

Full breasts: check.  
Rounded hips: check.  
Ability to ask for directions: check. 

"Damn it!" a soprano voice quavered. Was that really my voice? "I'm a woman. What else could possibly go wrong?" 

"SWEETO!" Without warning, my chest tripled in weight. My efforts to dislodge Happosai became more frantic as I heard him mumbling, "Aren't you a pretty little thing? You should move in with me. I'll keep you safe from those bad men." 

To Saotome's load amusement, I started slamming into the walls pervert-first. "I shoulda known it. **Oof!** All these years. **Ack!** 'Just stopping by for a **Urg!** drink with **Auf!** an old friend.'" I stopped to fix the top of Happosai's bald head with a heated glare. "You were just trying to get me into bed, you bastard!" I screeched. 

"Hey!" His head came up. "That's not funny. You were a man back then." 

I used the presented opportunity to yank him off of me by the nostrils. "And why ain't I one now?" I screamed. I took several deep breaths in a attempt to calm down, but the appreciative looks I was receiving ruined the effect. "What did you do to me?" 

"I usually refer to that as feeling you u" 

"I know _that_, you pervert. Why am I a woman?" 

Saotome took this chance to butt into the conversation. "Well, technically you're not a woman; you're just a little girl," he taunted. "Quite appropriate too, considering the way you've been" 

Sadly, the true depths of Saotome's death wish were left unexplored that day, as he was suddenly knocked out due to the incidence of a small bolt of plasma. After assuring myself that he would stay down for the count, I collapsed the ring in my hand back down to the Dragon Whisker. Whistling, I went to tie it back into my hair, when I was stuck by a sudden realization. 

"Hey, my hair isn't growing. Maybe that stupid hair formula finally wore off." 

"No," Happosai corrected absently from the head of the table. "Hair Potion Number Nine only works on men." 

I turned to see that he had used the distraction to set up what looked like a fairly elaborate presentation. In addition to a slide-projector, he set out a row of stoppered beakers, a thermos, a planter, a towel, a camera, a mirror, and a small wooden maze. Happosai always liked to be the center of attention, so he equated a good speech with flashy gimmicks and toys. My headache was getting worse. 

"Aren't we missing something?" I asked. "Tea? Pastries? Oh, I know: my freakin' manhood! A joke's a joke, but I think you better put me back to normal, right now!" 

"All in good time. All in good time," Happosai assured me. "We have a lot of ground to cover, and if I start shuffling the agenda...well, who knows what parts might go missing?" 

There was no point pressing him for information while he was in this mood. I was pretty sure he was bluffing, but it was nothing worth missing parts over, especially when we were talking about _my_ missing parts. I could be patient until I got a chance to redirect the conversation. Damn! I had been so sure that I would be able to squeeze him for, at the very least, some tea and pastries. 

"This had better be worth my time," I growled as I returned to my seat. 

"Oh, it will. It will," He replied. "That is, unless you don't have the balls to grasp the opportunity I'm offering you. Get it? Don't have the balls? Bwahahahaha!" 

"Grrrrrrrr." 

"Okay. Okay. No need to get your panties in a twist. Sheesh! Hehe, panties." 

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

After a little fiddling, Happosai got the first slide up. It was a map of China, covered with a menagerie of symbols. I managed to spot dragons, foxes, swords, fruit trees, and a what appeared to be a carousel horse before Happosai started his explanation. 

"The wilds of China have always had a special place in the hearts and minds of storytellers from around the world. Tales from Asia and Europe have long populated the area with every manner of ghost, demon, and bug-eyed monster. What you probably don't realize, what few of your generation even suspect, is that, up until the sometime in middle of the twentieth century, those stories were not far from the truth: China contained several of the biggest hotbeds of supernatural activity in the world." 

"It's hard to say exactly when the state of affairs ended." **Cha-chick**: the street was dominated by the giant portraits of Chairman Mao. "Between World War II, two revolutions, and the beginning of the Cold War, everyone was taking any news coming out of China with a grain of salt." **Cha-chick**: a table overflowed with piles of pamphlets in various languages. "There might have been some clues in and amongst all the propaganda hailing the end of oppression and superstition, but if so, it was ignored. Sure, in their quest for 'the ideal scientific and democratic society' the Communists could knock down temples and burn books, but what could they possibly do about more intangible institutions? Nothing! Or so we thought." **Cha-chick**: a man desperately pushed back against a bulging door. "It was easy to assume that the Chinese, always somewhat embarrassed by their unearthly neighbors, had just gone on to a whole new level of paranoia and secrecy on the subject. It wasn't until the Sixties that it became clear that China's normally turbulent supernatural activity had mellowed down to barely three times the global average, and nobody could explain why. 

"I stumbled across what I believe is the answer on an expedition through Central China to find the ruins of Pandala, the legendary seat of the ancient panda civilization." **Cha-chick**: two spear-wielding pandas stood in front of a gate, driving off another panda who held an upside-down copy of _Mating for the Completely Clueless_ in its paws. "You see, given number of supposedly mutant pandas that have shown human-level intelligence" 

"Yes, yes," I said, "I know all about your stupid theory on pandas. I've told you before: I don't want to hear about then; I don't want to see then; and I reallyand I mean _really_don't want to get involved in anything to do with them." 

"Oh, rightthe incident with the the cursed canning jars." Happosai hemmed and hawed a bit before asking, "Just out of curiosity: do you have a problem with anything that looks like a panda, or just real pandas?" 

An air-raid siren started going off in my head. "It's not those pandimensional pandroids again, is it?" 

"No. I" 

"Zombie pandas from the Beyond?" 

"No! You" 

"An ancient militant order of monks practicing the deadly art of panda-fu?" 

"Don't be ridicu" 

"A freakish parody of a panda, brought to life by a mad artist using tools bought at the estate action of a cult of demon worshipers?" 

Happosai had finally had "_ENOUGH!!!_" He glared at me for a few seconds before continuing, "If you really must know, then watch." 

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Time seemed to slow as the liquid approached the body of Happosai's unconscious assistant. When it hit, the effects were immediate: Saotome's body started to twist, and warp, and mold in a queasy fashion. My stomach gave a liquid lurch as I made the connection with my earlier transmogrification. 

"It always takes a little time for the transformation to take hold the first time," Happosai commented as he watched the form convulse. "After that, it's almost instantaneous." 

Finally the writhing pile of flesh solidified into the form of a large panda. The beast sat up groggily, attempting massaging its forehead with one stubby paw, and then growfed angrily as it noticed its lack of articulate digits. It shot a hostile glare at Happosai before waddling out the door. 

I stared out the empty doorway, trying to form a coherent question. I had worked my way up to "Wha?" when my thoughts were interrupted by the rapid clatter of the slide projector. **Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-chick.** I turned in time to view the last few panda-centric slides, before they were whisked away in favor of a studding view overlooking a cluster of bamboo-studded springs. 

"This is Chouchuanshan or, as we would call it, Jusenkyou, the Land of Cursed Springs. It didn't always carry this harsh title. It was actually once considered a very holy place." **Cha-chick**: it was a baptism of sorts, or at least it involved water and flimsy white clothing. "Anyone immersed in the waters was reborn, freed from the shackles of magic, fate, and infirmity. Fed by the purest of glaciers and the deepest hot vents, the springs formed a mighty vortex of power that even destiny dared not touch. To many, it was a last chance at redemption. Unfortunately, someone else had a different use for the springs. 

**Cha-chick**: a proud warlord rode at the front of a mighty army. "Magic was always a stumbling block for those that would wield power in China. When it comes to educating the unwashed masses on the benefits of civilization, it doesn't help if every Tom..." **Cha-chick**: A villager with a glowing sword fought off a ring of uniformed men. "...Dick..." **Cha-chick**: An old man stood at the edge of a river, throwing handfuls of fire out at a boat. "..and Harry..." **Cha-chick.** A ghostly presence, cradling a dagger, crouched behind a throne. "...has the power to educate you back. It's even worse when every hill, stream, and forest can do the same" **Cha-chick**: panicked men desperately fled a giant landslide. **Cha-chick**: a watery spirit shattered an earthen dam, scattering dozens of laborers with their yokes and buckets. **Cha-chick**: a heavy tree branch mashed a woodsman to a fine pulp. 

"Don't forget armchairs," I interjected. "There is no end to the heinous acts that can be perpetrated through the vicious use of an armchair." 

Happosai wisely chose to ignore me. "As if the practical problems weren't bad enough, the situation was often just plain embarrassing. You think your living relatives can be mortifying? (Do not deny it; I know your sister too well.)" **Cha-chick**: I was fairly certain that I'd been on this ride at an amusement park. "Well, try having a few dead ones show up for tea every Thursday night." **Cha-chick**: where those extremely small people or really big shoes? "How about explaining the arrangement with that oh-so-silent partner to every time a new religion or government blows into town? 

"The frustration wasn't limited to the Chinese lords either." **Cha-chick** "Every group that traveled to China, whether for trade or conquest, came back with some story to tell" **Cha-chick** My attention started to wander around the table. "...Mongol warlord sweeping down in a reign of terror..." My eyes stopped on the beakers. I ignored the three empty ones; that left three more. **Cha-chick** Let's see, each beakerful of water would change a person to a particular form. "...dynasties fell due to..." Happosai had hinted that, however briefly, I would be able to regain my masculinity sometime that evening; that made one beaker that must contain man-water. **Cha-chick** Saotome would need to change back; that made two. I just had to eliminate one possibility. "...Opium Wars, many Europeans..." No, I couldn't be completely sure that Happosai had wanted to use the panda-water immediately, so I couldn't act too precipitously. The question was: if I could find the man-water, should I immediately try to grab it? **Cha-chick** Like it or not, I would be using this girl form for the foreseeable future; it was the perfect camouflage. Was it worth pissing off Happosai just to assure myself that I could change back? "Are you listening to me at all?" 

My eyes snapped back up to Happosai. "Sure! I was just wondering...um," I fumbled for a good excuse. "What's so big about magic? Yeah, it can be a pain, but so can thieves, unions, and natural disasters. It's nothing that can't be taken into account." 

"You fail to grasp the scope of the problems I am talking about." Happosai thought for a few seconds. "Poets often compare the Great Wall to a sleeping dragon, winding its way across China. This is ironic, because according to certain sources, one ancient segment was built to cover the remains of a dragon slain by rampaging demons. A body miles long, strong enough to support uncountable tons of stone, and he was the loser. We are talking about disasters greater than anything nature could ever design, troubles that no army of warriors could face head-on. As long as this type of magic ran wild, the rule of human kings was but a paper-thin illusion." 

**Cha-chick**: a more panoramic show of the springs revealed mountains in the distance. "Jusenkyou must have seemed like a god-given opportunity to whoever first saw the possibilities. The only had to trace back the springs' source, hollow out a small mountain, drop in some plumbing, and presto—they had Jusendou, a factory for eradicating every bit of magic that could be carried, dragged, or lured there. Jusenkyou became little more than a sump, a temporary resting place for those magics too stubborn to dissipate during their first trip through the works. Now, instead of curing curses, the springs are far more likely to bestow one on anyone foolish enough to enter. 

"Luckily, because they have already been weakened at least once, these curses tend to be easy to reverse or cure—" 

"How? HOW?" I demanded. 

"—or just as easily strengthened, particularly in the case of the transfigurations," Happosai finished. 

"I'll be good," I promised. 

"Not comes the fun part: a demonstration," Happosai said. He removed a moss-covered rock from the planter and started to carefully pry off a couple of long strips of the hairy growth. "After I found Jusenkyou, I couldn't resist playing around a bit. One of the things I learned was that, although the curses tend to require a living target, there were ways of working around this limitation." He smeared a packet of gel onto the camera and then started to wind one of the strips around it. "In straightforward cases like your own, the transformation takes along the bones, hair, skin, digestive system and several other body parts that contain dead or foreign matter. It was just a small intuitive leap from that to this..." He set the completed green lump down in the wooden maze and then drenched it with the contents of another beaker. After a few seconds, a small white rat was running through the labyrinth. 

"The moss needs a surface to grow on; it's an integral part of how the moss collects nourishment, how it grows, and how it spreads. From a certain, admittedly strange viewpoint, a moss-covered rock could be constitute a single living organism. Once you accept that premise, the variations can be quite interesting." The rat rounded the corner and spotted sizable chunk of cheese. It took off so fast that the green lump was still rolling when Happosai lowered his thermos. "Especially in our situation." With a clicking whir, the lump shot out an instant photo. 

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

After diving over the table in a third attempt to snatch the Thermos from Happosai, I looked up from my crumpled position and saw Saotome in the doorway, sipping at a steaming cup of tea with one hand and holding a cat in the other. 

"Quick! Circle around. He had some sort of cure in—Hey!" I shook off the last of my daze. "When did you become human again?" 

He just looked at me weirdly for a few seconds, then he tossed his tea onto me. 

"Hot. Hot! HOT!" I quickly pulled the steaming cloth of my shirt away from my stinging but thankfully flat chest. 

"Serves you right" commented Saotome icily, as he fingered the scorch marks on his own outfit. 

I laughed nervously as I fanned my shirt in an effort to cool it off. "So that's it then: that water gives us the curse, and hot tea breaks it?" 

Happosai turned from where he had been happily stripping moss off of the camera. "Not quite. Your curse is still there; it's just kind of...bent out of the way. Cold water..." A pile of shredded moss became a pile of mutilated mouse chunks. "Hot water..." As the parts reverted to moss, they took on silky-looking brown color. "It's actually a little bit more complicated than that, but you can read the whole file later. Luckily, your first curse is extremely potent, so it won't reverse except under fairly extreme—" 

"Wait! Wait! First curse?" I asked, "As in one among many?" 

"Thought this was going to be simple, did you?" drawled Saotome. 

Happosai rolled his eyes at the byplay. "You can't honestly believe I would waste my time dumping water over you twice, just to get some sort of sick kick out of playing with you mind." 

Saotome and I both managed to remain quiet for a few long moments. 

"Well..." Happosai waxed indignant. 

"Now that you mention it..." I ventured 

With the air of a wronged martyr, Happosai slid the handmirror down the table toward me. I caught it and studied my reflection. 

"I could pass for sixteen," I admitted grudgingly, "but not myself at sixteen." 

Happosai smiled in amusement and started in with a ridiculous accent. "Too bad. You fall in Spring of Drowned Immortal Pill. Very tragic story of Immortal Pill chucked into spring by your sister there one week ago." Both of them snickered at this before Happosai waved aside my look of incomprehension. "Don't worry about it: you'll laugh later. Lets just say I took a gamble, and it payed off handsomely. It's a good thing too; those little suckers are getting harder and harder to track down these days" 

I thought about that for a bit. "So...I'll never grow old, and I'll never die?" 

"No, no, no. Everybody assumes that when they hear the name. It's one of those funny cultural things that don't translate well without the proper background. Its goes something like, if you have pure heart, the Immortal Pill will speed your growth toward true enlightenment and immortality. Obviously, that will be useless to you—" 

"Hey!" 

"—so we will just have to settle for the side effect: a highly idealized version of the constitution you could have theoretically developed through clean living. You are as healthy as it is possible to be: no toxins, no clogged arteries, and not even so much as a pimple or a wrinkle. As you noted, you could easily pass for a well-developed teenager. How long you stay that way will depend solely on the lifestyle you choose." He motioned to his own shrunken body with a strange mixture of pride and humility. 

"Personal experience, huh?" I commented. Something was itching at the back of my brain, and I finally remembered what it was. "So why do I need the girl curse; I think I would be quite happy with just this one." 

Happosai chuckled a little bit. "Well, about that...you know how your sister can be?" 

The clues suddenly lined up rather nicely. "She pissed off a bunch of people collecting this stuff, and now you need someone that looks like a suddenly young version of her to take the heat." 

"Glad we understand each other," Happosai agreed, "but cheer up; its better than dealing with your own mess." 

I let a little of my skepticism leak out through my eyes. 

"It's not like any of _her_ enemies will be out to kill her." He paused in thought."Well, possibly a few will—a half-dozen on the outside, but you still come ahead from the trade." 

I told myself I could be calm and rational about this. "Do you know why my sister and I haven't had much to do with each other for the last two decades?" I asked. "It isn't that we don't like each other; we get along great. It is because of situations like this one. 

"It was the same thing all the way through childhood. She would make some oblivious comment and offend someone. The worst part was she would never realize she had done anything. Suddenly, she would be confronted with several dozen people who were furious with her for no apparent reason, and she would get mad. After things escalated, I would end up getting involved in an effort to calm things down. Somehow the whole mess would suddenly become my fault, and more and more people would get involved just for the pleasure of telling me so. After a certain point, I would lose my temper, and by the time the dust cleared, the town council and the local insurance adjusters would start giving very obvious hints that it would be worth our families while to move somewhere far, far away. So, we would, and the whole process would start over again. 

"If my parents hadn't been making out like bandits from the 'going-away presents' I think they would have thrown me out over the mess" 

"Well, don't worry about it too much," Happosai assured me. "If we need it, we'll have a fair amount of weight to throw around during this operation." 

"So...are you going to tell me about it, or just continue with the history lesson," I announced. 

"If _someone_ didn't find in necessary to interrupt, and knock-out assistants, and generally make a nuisance of himself," Happosai replied, "we would be done by now," 

Now, what could I say to that? 

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"Now, where were we..." Happosai looked over the contents of the table. "Ah, yes. You should look at this." He tossed over the photo, which had finished developing. It showed an incomplete map of a wooden maze with a large piece of cheese at the end. "If I was to stuff that into another ball of moss, the new mouse would go straight to the cheese." he explained, "Unfortunately, _someone_ knocked over my planter while he was diving over the table, so you'll just have to take my word for it." 

**Cha-chick**: An elaborate suit of samurai armor, covered with the now familiar moss, lay on a table. "The application this effect was fairly obvious: martial arts scrolls, plus large doll, plus water, equals instant martial artist. Once I had a that proof of concept down, I would be able to...well, I'm sure you can imagine the possibilities." 

"Unfortunately the plan was...well, a flop." **Cha-chick**: A young man sat on the same table, bawling like a baby. "Soun's personality was...unbalanced. He had a hundred lifetimes worth of knowledge on how to fight, but he had no other way to interact with the world. Put him in front of a rampaging demon, and he was in his element; ask him what he wanted for dinner, and he would melt down into a quivering pile of indecision. Genma and I spent a year traveling with him, slowly coaxing him out of his shell, but in the end, we admitted that he would never be able to cope with the real world. There was just something missing in him, something we couldn't analyze and put on a scroll. Long story short, we locked his curse and set him up at a nice little dojo with a caretaker to watch over him. Eventually, they got married and had three daughters." 

"That's all very interesting and touching and all," I commented, "but what does that have to do with me?" 

Happosai sighed. "You know, this really would have been much simpler if you had just let me tell everything in order. Yet another thing that your sister found out (on the trip you will never let me get around to telling you about) is that, when the curse is locked, the hidden form can be passed on to the following generations. There are now three doll-turned-humans ready to be studied, ones that don't have the flaw of the original. We just need somebody to get close to them: someone intelligent, and resourceful, and reliable. We were thinking about sending Genma's daughter." 

That was a relief. For a second there, I thought they were talking about sending me. "Hey, Saotome, you old dog," I said. "I never knew you had any kids." 

"Just one," he said. Suddenly he was crushing the air out of my lungs. "And I think I'll call her Ranma." 

"Oh....joy," I gasped out.

* * *

**Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all associated characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, Fuji TV, and Viz Communications. I am borrowing them for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

**Author's Notes:**Lots of exposition, no story. Hopefully the next chapter will have more substance. 


	5. Abandoned Summary of Plot

Losing four chapters and all my notes to a hard drive failure has pretty much killed off any enthusiasm I had for this project. I thought I would put up a summary of the story and ideas, on the off chance that anyone was interested. Keep in mind, most of the story will still in the skeletal stage, so many of the ideas are kind of rough. Please feel free to use any ideas you like. 

**The Setup**

The setting is a standard mad scientist/dark magician world. A bunch of lunies are running around, playing with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Lots of things are going bump in the night. To preserve order and some sense of sanity, there are a lot of MIB-equivalents running around, covering up anything weird. 

Enter the hero. Thanks to childhood trauma, he makes a promise never to ignore an injustice because it is convenient to do so, and inevitably, he spends most of his childhood rebelling against authority. **Insert Chapter 1 here.** This predisposition gradually turns into a disregard for the law, and he leaves home to start a career on the murkier of the economy, using his old nickname Ran. With the advantage of the Dragon Whisker (the pandimensional equivalent of the Swiss Army Knife), he spends several decades adventuring before, one day, he looks in the mirror and discovers a cynical old fart staring back. He starts doing reckless things and lands in a whole heap of trouble. 

Meanwhile, his younger sister, Nodoka, shows her slightly more idealistic streak by going to work for Happosai, a near-immortal who considers the future of the human race his pet hobby. (Happosai still has his _other_ hobbies, but they are as much smokescreen as genuine perversion.) One of the consequences of this employment is that Ran is brought to Happosai's attention. **Insert Chapter 2 here.** Another is that Nodoka is sent on a trip to Jusenkyou, accompanied only by her panda sidekick. (Not one of those bamboo-obsessed low foreheads you see in the zoo. Those are just the inbred spawn of the degenerates driven out during the purges. The modern Pandas, sometimes referred to as the Ogier, rarely leave their isolated enclaves, where they live in luxury and safety unimaginable by human standards. When one of them do get wanderlust, they inevitably travel in the company of reclusive scientists and martial artists, following the theory that the human world is too dangerous if you aren't backed up by ridiculous amounts of firepower.) 

I go over Jusenkyou in Chapter 43, so I will skip the details of how it differs from cannon. Happosai likes to send someone there every few years, just to see if any useful magic has surfaced. On this trip, he sends along an Immortal Pill he had acquired. (I was thinking of the items that Monkey was always stealing in _Journey to the West_, which didn't necessarily treat immortality and never-ending life as the same thing. 'Not mortal' could mean capable of indefinite personal growth as easily as not subject to death. Perhaps I should have used a different word, but I thought it was interesting.) Happosai gambled that immortality was a yes-or-no proposition, and Jusenkyou could separate it into doses. Nodoka, who is getting on in years herself, takes one for the team and uses herself as a guinea pig. 

For the remainder of the trip, she exercises her remarkable ability to piss off complete strangers. She breaks a long-standing truce between two tribe of horse breeders by passing through a annual festival and trampling the ceremonial clover. She effortlessly wins the Joketsuzoku championship after stealing the prize. She drops several packets of seeds from dangerous plants, and it contaminated the village seed stock. Soon she has a good portion of the valley out for her blood. 

The worst comes when she was trying to tinker with her curse so she could hide out in her older form. (Water from a silver container will weaken/unlock a curse. Water from a container formed of a magically-charged wood such as rowan will strengthen/lock a curse.) She managed to hit the Musk prince Herb with a splash, freeing his latent dragon-form. He is happy about the sudden power-up, but pissed off that he can't fit into his own castle. When he comes back, Nodoka hits him with a laddleful of water from the springs and locks him in a female form. The guide sends her to the only person that might be able to protect her from Herb's wrath. 

Kamapua'a is a Hawaiian demigod who has been bumming around China ever since his sometimes-lover Pele blew her top at him a few centuries ago. At one time, he had many powers, including the ability to assume many forms, the most powerful being a giant boar. When he first met the Musk, they wheedled out his knowledge of animal-based combat, and then they conspired to lock away his powers. Nodoka tells him that the waters of Jusendo may be able to destroy whatever sorcerous lock they cast over him. He tries her idea, and it ends badly. His once proud boar-form is reduced to a piglet, and he has no control over his powers or transformation. 

Still, a deal is a deal, and he agrees to help her fight Herb. He manages to call Herb out, and challenges him to a public duel over Nodoka's fate. Being no fool, Nodoka has used the thing as a distraction and is making tracks to the nearest outpost of civilization, where she can make arrangements for discrete transportation out of the country. 

Happosai now had three problems he had to solve: How could he help out his old drinking buddy Ran? Where was he going to hire someone cold-blooded enough to neutralize Nodoka's problems, but cheap enough to hire for how ever long it would take for all of them to show up? Could he salvage the old Tendo project, now that he knew that locked forms could be passed from generation to generation? 

There was a single, elegant solution to all these problems. Sure, Ran would be pissed off about the girl curse for a while, but he _was_ getting renewed youth and extended life in the bargain. Given the pseudonym Nodoka was using, Ran could easily be passed off as Genma's daughter, Ranma. **Insert Chapter 4 here.** The only problem is that, despite decades of infighting experience, Ran can't pass as a martial artist. His fighting style is very utilitarian: find the easiest way to win, using fair means or foul, or if the opponent is too good, dodge until he get away. 

Happosai has a quick fix. He has Ran use the Naaban mirror (which, despite whatever those barbarians he stole it from may think, only offers transport into a construct of the users mind) to transport them and a cat to "the ideal home for a cat." Even Happosai is disturbed at the sight of the cat shredding several dancing mice, birds, and disembodied nylons. They leave the cat there, as Ran will be subconsciously aware of it, can will absorb any admirable traits such as good reflexes and balance. Still haunted by the sight of bloody, tattered pantyhose trying to pull itself away from the cat, Happosai leaves Genma in charge of Ran's crash course in martial arts. 

Genma puts Ranma (using new name from now on) through some real bizarre training to competency in a month. There are still some serious holes in his knowledge, but between his new reflexs and Genma's help, they figure they can pull it off. **Insert some wise martial arts mumbo-jumbo to show Genma has hidden depths.**

**Here's Ranma**

The day of arrival begins. Genma wakes Ranma up early, as he remembers something about a drunken promise he doesn't want to talk about, and wants to clear it up with Soun before something stupid happens. They have to walk so that they can develop that itinerant martial artist look, i.e. a healthy layer of dirt. They reach the front entrance of their hotel, only to find that it is raining. Ranma is locked in girl-form for the duration of the job, and Genma is used to his panda form, so they take off anyway. Genma immediately turns into a panda, and his backpack is shredded by his massive ursine shoulders. They repack everything they can fit, consisting mainly of some useful gadgets and tools they want along, into Ranma's pack, and they are on their way again. 

They run into the first of the people after Nodoka, the horse tribe. The first faction just want to kill the girl and the panda, so they attack. The second faction shows up a few seconds later, and they kidnap Ranma, who is caught between two groups of riders and a massive backpack. 

Ranma wakes in the cabin of a boat, and using the Dragon Whisker to cut those pesky locks, she riffles the room, stealing some nifty red and black clothes and a sizable amount of money. The owner deserves to lose the clothes after kidnapping a poor defenseless young girl, and as for the money, well, a girl needs to accessorize, right? The leader finally shows up, and explains that, due to some obscure prophesy and about a woman with the name and spirit of the horse, she is destined to be at his side as he leads his people to greatness. He foolishly spreads his arms to block the door, so she dislocates his kneecap and nose. While kicking him a few times, for good measure, she decides she can't kill him now without hunting down every man in his troop, and she doesn't have the time to dispose of that many bodies. She slips off the boat while everybody is busy (or trying to appear busy) loading the horses on board. 

She finds Genma part way down the pier, eating an ice cream cone. Her outrage is casually deflected by his stack of (prewritten) signs quizzing her on the state of her innocence, and did she need Prince Charming to come save her. On his last sign, he admits that he was giving her the time it took to eat one cone to get herself out, and then he was going to go in after her. Forgetting how heavy the pack would seem to a normal human, the panda tosses the backpack to her, knocking her out. 

The little side trip to the wrong side of Tokyo costs a lot of time, so they don't get to the dojo until the afternoon. 

Ranma wakes up to a face full of wet panda fur, and thrashes around until she is set down. It takes an inordinate amount of time for Ranma to be introduced to anyone, so she has some fun making up names. Soun, as per Chapter 4, is Unstable Killing Machine. Akane, because of the gi, is Martial Arts Barbie. Nabiki has on a sort of stylish kimono, so she is Fashion-Sense Barbie. Kasumi is Girl-Next-Door Barbie. 

After the "100 female" groping incident, Nabiki takes on a series on names including Groper Barbie and Sqeeze-Action Barbie. 

Soun collapses. Kasumi gets him down the hall and into a comfortable position, earning herself the name Housewife Barbie. Ranma takes the chance to look the place over. Molester Barbie changes into a simple shorts and shirt combo. ("Now that she has made it to second base, she doesn't feel the need to impress me any more.") They end up clustered around Soun as he regains consciousness. Some more embarrassment. Akane saves Ranma from Nabiki, and they go off to the dojo. 

Ranma has no good excuse for turning down a spar. The original plan called for Ranma to only spar with Genma, so they could make it look good. Ranma decides to just dodge, as that will give Akane a extremely inflated view of Ranma's overall skill level (due to cat). 

Between Akane's "I'm just glad your not a boy" routine and everything else that had happened today, Ranma starts to get in a bad mood. She lets Kasumi lead her to the bathroom, and decides there would be little harm in taking a few, last, private moments in male-form. A splash from the silver cup, which was brought for unlocking the girls doll forms, returns Ranma to boy-form. He is ready to return to girl-form, when Akane walks into the room. 

Meanwhile, Genma has been speaking with Soun. Yes, Genma had a son, but you know how horrible, horrible things can happen during training. Certain pieces went missing, and perhaps it would be better if everyone pretended Ranma was always a girl. The path of a true martial artist is fraught with peril. 

Then, everything falls through, and Ranma ends up engaged to Akane. Later, Genma pulls Ranma aside and tells him that it was his own fault, and if he hurts any of Soun's kids, then he will go through a more painful type of emasculation. For the rest of the story, Genma is struck trying to make it look like he is pushing the relationship, while at the same time he is trying protect the various girls from getting too attached to Ranma. 

**General Themes and Running Gags**

This Ranma is a lot less powerful of a martial artist than cannon Ranma. Having fought alongside and against a lot of different styles, he probably knows as much or more about fighting, but he has never had the commitment to martial arts that would allow studying past what he considers the point of diminishing returns. His basic style would be more like something taught in a military: extremely competency in solid moves that don't get too rusty if he doesn't practice for a couple weeks. 

He starts to pick up more skills over the course of the series due to boredom, self-preservation, and Genma's nagging, but he is never really at the level he seems. Part of this is due to the fact the Genma is covering for Ranma, using skills of the Umisenken to hide the interference. Much is accomplished through outright cheating, but none of those involved feel to guilty, as they consider most of the contests Ranma gets involved with completely asinine. 

This doesn't mean that Ranma is harmless in a fight. Any time he can lead the fight away from the public eye, he is free to use his own methods. Lots of modern weapons and gadgets come into play. Anyone who attacks or kidnaps one of the main characters for a stupid reason is in severe danger of being put out of everyone's misery. Remember, Ran isn't a martial artist, so he doesn't have to follow the same rules as Ranma. 

Ranma does a half-assed job in school, as it is very boring the second time around. 

Ranma iniitially has a lot of trouble unlocking the Tendo sisters' doll forms, leading to many misunderstandings. Eventually, he finds that Nabiki and Kasumi's forms are useless. (Kasumi is something like a human-sized doll house; how do you exchange information with that? Nabiki is a hi-tech toy with lots of little pieces that Ranma would never get back together if he tried to take it apart.) Despite a bunch of humiliating debacles involving the bathroom and bedroom, Ranma doesn't manage to hit Akane with the unlocking water. Then one day, Akane is hit with some hot tea at the dinner table. She immediately turns into a small doll. 

Apparently, this isn't the first time this has happened. Soun just zones out. Kasumi goes a little psycho and threatens the Saotomes. (The last person to find out was Tofu's secretary Betty, who had to be disposed of with extreme prejudice. Tofu has never really be the same since.) Nabiki just sighs and comments that now they know why Akane and Ranma were meant for one another. Even Akane doesn't know, and her sisters have been protecting her for years. 

The Saotome's promise to keep the secret, and proceed to do raid Akane-dolls's head for the minerature scrolls it contains. Hyjinx ensue as they try to determine how the contents relate to her personality. They play around with adding information, and the Battle Dogi and Vengeful Doll stories are examples of things that go wrong. Eventually they succeed, and Happosai uses the knowledge to create a harem girls that go around fighting demons in short skirts. 

I did have an ending planned out, but it would be meaningless to just spelled it out without a story leading up to it. I am keeping it in reserve, just in case I ever try to write something else. 

**Characters and Events**

**Genma** - He was once a proud member of Umisenken School, which combined the mystical study of ki manipulation with the modern study of psychology to for the ultimate Art of Subliminal Advertising. One day, he was going through the rather routine exercise of making an anti-drug commercial that was so trite that kids would be forced to take up drugs just to escape the drudgery, when one of the Masters asked him to adjust the result to fit with the new Hello Kitty campaign. Suddenly, Genma realized exactly how dishonorable his life was. He immediately made a vow to find a nobler path, such as panty theft—just as long as the panties weren't Hello Kitty prints. He eventually became a student of Happosai. 

**Jusenkyou Guide** - Despite Jusendo's relative importance, the guide is paid peanuts by the government. He is happy to keep Happosai updated on anything important that happens, for a price. 

**Ran's Past** - A secret shared by two people is no secret. Ranma can't stand to just give up the resources of his old life, but every time he tries to solve a problem this way, he just creates a bigger mess. A vicious cycle. 

**Mousse** - One of those rare individuals that knows why a house seems bigger on the inside, Mousse found the respect amongst the smuggling community that he was unable to find in his home village. The only tie he retains to the Amazons is his crush on Shampoo, who he tells everyone about...at great length. Ranma and Genma encounter him early when Genma is trying to find ways to communicate in panda form. When events bring Mousse to Nerima, he knows more it going on than meets the eye, but he prefers to play his cards close to his chest. He wants Shampoo, but he keeps his options open on all other accounts. 

**Kunos** - Principal Kuno is a firm believer in the progressive education. Students learn better when they are challenged, and a good student is strong in mind and body. So, he created Martial Arts Teaching. Even after Furikan achieved the highest test scores in decades, the school board sent him on indefinite sabbatical due to some of his paticular forms of motivation: the Fire-Breathing Tiki Maze of Mathematics, the Exploding-Pinnapple Trebuchet, the Conjugate and Shark Relay, and the Cumulative Luau. Luckily, nobody knew about his robotic weapons against deliquency, Tatewaki and Kodachi. As the existence of magic is illogical, the entire Anything-Goes School has been classified as technology that much be assimilated for the greater good. 

**Ryouga** - Kamapua'a comes looking for Ranma (Nodoka), because she didn't show up for the fight with Herb. Ranma doesn't recognize this person accusing him of being a coward, and makes up the story of Ryouga Hibiki and his non-existent direction sense. The newly-named Ryouga gives him the benefit of the doubt and plays along. When Ranma still pretends to not know what he is talking about in private, he starts using the convenient alibi Ranma had given him to show up at weird times to cause trouble. 

**Shampoo** - Ranma is surprise when the subject of Mousse's infatuation shows up. After she leaves the first time, the Guide informs Happosai of her new form. 

**Cologne** - Despite a little bluster, Cologne is way out of her league in this case. She is used to being the head schemer in a providential village; now she is coming in contact with people that plan to remake the world. She is canny enough to know there are greater forces at work, but she can't figure out their motives. After backing down from fights with both Ranma (in the Neko-ken) and Happosai (Hiryu Shouten Ha Arc), she starts working through pawns and catspaws. Ranma really puzzles her. She gets conflicting readings on his skill level, and every time she thinks he has met his match, he comes back victorious. 

**Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken** - You think grabbing chestnuts will improve your reflexes? Try catching mice! 

**Neko-Ken** - This is a complete put-up job. Because of the power-up Happosai gave Ranma using the Naaban Mirror, Ranma can act like a cat, but it gives little benefit, and it is completely under control. Ranma and Genma make it look better through shrewd use of the Dragon Whisker, the Umisenken, and a few gadgets, and then they spread around the story where Cologne would hear about it. This gives Ranma a trump he can play on Cologne. She isn't willing to admit she has never heard of such a powerful technique, and she won't confront such an unpredictable opponent if she can avoid it. 

**Hiryu Shouten Ha** - Another put-up job. Happosai is wondering how many more ancient Amazon secrets they can get out of Cologne, so they come up with a bogus story about the Ultimate Weakness Point. After Cologne tries to confront Happosai and sees a fraction of his power, she backs off and teaches Ranma a powerful technique in order to save face. 

**Mouko Takabisha** - After failing to reproduce Ryouga's Shi Shi Hokodan, Ranma uses the Dragon Whisker to fake it. 

**Ukyou** - Ranma needs some information, so he calls up his old pal Ukyou, an information broker. Unfortunately, Ukyou is dead, but his daughter Usagi, the one with the old childhood crush on Ran, has taken over the business. She has also taken over her father's identity, because it is hard for somebody to take an Usagi seriously in the business. Hyjinks ensue. 

**Herb** - Ranma owes Herb for locking him in girl-form. Ryouga owes Herb for a loss of power and a humiliating defeat. Mouse owes Herb a beating just for being Musk. It's a good thing that they are all honorable martial artists that would never stoop to treachery or murder. 

**Nodoka** - Eventually, Little Sister will get back from wherever Happosai sent her, and she will find out all the trouble the menfolk have been going through to save her from her own foolishness. Ranma may have a few reasons to be upset himself. Let the lies and recriminations begin, starting with a certain contract.


End file.
